1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to print job processing method and apparatus, and more particularly, to print job processing method and apparatus for a print shop employing multiple printers as well as inline and offline finishing devices.
2. Description of Related Art
In an environment that processes a large number of print jobs with multiple printers, there has been a need to manage print jobs efficiently in an organized fashion. Examples of such an environment are professional print shops and print/copy departments at large organizations, where a variety of print requests, such as large-volume duplication and large document printing, needs to be processed and completed by utilizing multiple printers within a short turn-around time. These environments are collectively referred to as “print shops” in this application. Typically, each printing job specifies a source file that electrically contains a document to be printed, the size, color and the type of the paper on which the document should be printed, the printing resolution, duplex or single-side printing, and certain finishing conditions, such as book, staple, collate printing, etc., depending on a print job requester's needs. In order to process a large volume of print jobs that each differ in terms of these job parameters, a print shop utilizes multiple commercial grade printers. Typically, one or more black & white (B&W) printers are in operation to process B&W printing. Color printers are also installed to handle color printing. Each of these printers, however, has limitations on available printer settings, such as the paper size, the paper type, resolution settings, etc. In addition, the print shop employs various finishing devices, such as collators, staplers, hole punchers, folding machines, binding machines, etc. These finishing devices are either mechanically and electrically associated with printers (referred to as “inline” finishing devices), or stand-alone devices (referred to as “offline” finishing devices). For an inline finishing device, printed sheets from the associated printer can be automatically routed to the finishing device and no operator intervention is necessary to complete the finishing step. For an offline finishing device, on the other hand, the operator normally need to manually transport the output of a printer to the finishing device and initiate the finishing step. When a large volume of printing jobs is to be handled with multiple printers and finishing devices, it is a daunting task to assign each printing job to an appropriate printer with appropriate finishing devices.